HEALTH

‘Docs are overcautious these days’
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Oct 30 — People's faith in the medical profession is reducing resulting in escalating cost of treatment and unnecessary harassment to the patients.

These views were expressed by doctors of the organising committee of the Medical College Patiala Alumni Association, while talking to mediapersons here toady. The association is organising a seminar on November 4 on “Medical profession on rise — doctors stand and rise”. The doctors felt that the main reason for degenerating patient-doctor relationship was the growing sense of distrust between the two.

According to the Director Health Services, Dr Joginder Singh, who is also the chief of GOMCO, the forthcoming seminar was aimed at upgrading knowledge of doctors besides creating awareness amongst people.

The organising secretary of the conference, Dr R. Kumar, felt that with the number of litigations against the doctors increasing in the consumer courts, medicos were becoming extra cautious, almost to the extent of being wary.

200 examined at medical camp
Tribune News Service

PANCHKULA, Oct 30 — As many as 200 patients were examined at a free medical check-up camp for osteoporosis, organised by the State Bank of India, at the bank’s Staff Training Centre in Sector 14, here yesterday.

At the camp, a test was performed for checking the presence of the disease. The camp was inaugurated by Mr D.L. Manwani, general manager (Personnel).

He said it was the first camp of its kind to be held in the city where strength of the patient’s bones was tested and medicines recommended for treatment.

A team of doctors led by Dr V.K. Chhabra examined the patients between 10 am to 4 pm. He said that osteoporosis weakened the bones and made them brittle, leading to painful joints and backache.

Earlier, the manager, social work, Mr D.P. Singhal, said this camp was held under the social welfare scheme of the bank and more such camps would be organised in the future to benefit all sections of society.

SPORT

CCA selects team
From Our Sports Reporter

CHANDIGARH, Oct 30 — The Chandigarh Cricket Association, affiliated to the Haryana Cricket Association, has selected a 16-member UT under-16 cricket team which will take part in the Haryana Inter-District Cricket Tournament the under-16 section for Rajinder Goel Trophy, beginning November 1.

According to Mr Surinder Singh 'Baijee', secretary of the association, the team was selected after a month-long rigorous training camp. Chandigarh will play their first match against Panchkula on the opening day at Mansa Devi Complex grounds.

Members of the team are: Nehit Tuli, Arvind, Arun Jain, Charanjeet Singh, Varun Kumar, Ramandeep Singh, Prashant Bahuguna, Madhur Sharma, Vishal, Gaurav, Maninder Singh, Vijay Singh, Amanpreet Singh, Sarvpreet Singh, Karan Khirwal and Gaurav Lapia.

Stand-bys: Amit Saini, Varun Mahajan, Nitin Rathore, Gaurav Gupta, Pritpal and Hanif.

Kho-kho championship

The Government High School Club, Sector 32, outplayed Shishu Niketan Model Senior Secondary School, Sector 22, by one point, while in the girls' section the Shishu Niketan Club defeated Government High School, Sector 32, by 12-06 in the Chandigarh State Junior Kho-Kho championship, which concluded here last evening.

Results — semi-finals: boys: GHS Club beat GMMS-42 by one innings and 19 points. girls semi-finals: GHS-32 beat Unified Club 18-02; SN-22 beat Sacred Heart School, Sector 26, by one turn and nine points.

Woman with a mission 
From Our Correspondent

CHANDIGARH, Oct 30 — The local Ishwar Dev Samaj Girls Senior Secondary School, Sector 21 with its humble beginning in 1957 has established itself in the field of sports, thanks to stupendous efforts made by its principal Ms Sumati Kanwar who herself was a reputed basketball player in her times.

Ms Kanwar said she was of the opinion that students must excel in both studies and sports and groom themselves into a mega personality. She said considering the fact, she had asked all students of the school to participate in at least one game.

The school meant for girls performed well in basketball with five players selected for the nationals and north zone basketball meets, thanks to Ms Paramjeet Kaur, the coach, with whose dedicated efforts, the team could do the needful. Then it won the UT inter-school under 17 basketball championship in 1999-2000. In the under 19 category, it for the second time won the CBSE Inter-school Cluster XI basketball meet. This year it won the prestigious Shriman Ishwar Shriman Singh Memorial Basketball Tournament. Recently it also won the UT Youth Basketball meet conducted by Chandigarh Basketball Association.

She informed that last year her school also won the ball badminton meet and two of her school players were selected for the national meet. Then it also won the UT inter- school cricket meet, then also bagged the inter-school hockey championship and last year got second place in All India Nehru Girls Hockey meet which was a rare achievement for the city. Eight of her school players were selected for the national hockey championship. The school also secured first place in the UT Sub Junior Kho Kho meet while got third place in CBSE Kho Kho meet, with four players selected for the national championship.

Ms Kanwar said her school girls also cornered glory by winning the overall trophy in the CBSE cluster XI Inter-School Athletic meet. In the UT Inter-School Athletic meet, it won four gold medals, one silver while two players selected for the national championship.

She said the school team had won first place in the air rifle and second position in the air pistol event in the inter-school meet. The Judokas of school won first place in one gold and three silver medals in inter- school meet. Volleyball team of school was runner up in the CBSE volleyball meet and two players were selected in city team for the national championship.

She said last year they organised CBSE basketball meet and the Ishwar Shriman Singh Memorial Tournament in basketball which was held this year also and extended to nearby towns also. She said the same tournament would be further extended to region also to give more exposure to the local girls.

Ms Kanwar was of the opinion that players should be given with best of the sports facilities and additional help in their education so that they could become a good citizen in the later life which her school was striving to provide.

ADMINISTRATION

Offices reopen after extended weekend
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Oct 30 — Work in various offices of the Chandigarh Administration, Punjab and Haryana Governments limped back to normalcy today after a four day weekend. The rush, however, in most public dealing offices, especially the vehicle registration branch, the electricity department and the passport office, was more than usual.

In the Chandigarh the Estate Office, Chandigarh Housing Board (CHB), Police Headquarters, Excise and Taxation wing, among other departments, official work carried on at full steam. Actually some of the offices were more crowded than ever before with visitors, who had been waiting for the past four days, coming in droves to get their work done.

If some kind of jugglery with casual leaves is taken into account several employees came back to work after nine days with their break commencing on October 21.

The Punjab and Haryana offices have opened only for two days and will close again on November 1, that is Wednesday, when the statehood day of both the states falls. In Punjab a cabinet meeting held today meant that not many people could get their work done as the officials and ministers were busy. In Haryana a pen down strike by employees affected work. Officials calculated that the rush would be more tomorrow and would peak on November 2 when the offices re-opened after the closed day on Wednesday.

Right since October 20, routine work in almost every department of the governments of Haryana, Punjab and the Chandigarh Administration had stopped due to the then prevailing festive spirit. These included the offices that deal with public matters routinely and also the revenue generating departments. Little things that effect everyday life like the registration of new vehicles or making of driving licences have been postponed.

Anyone wanting to get some clearance or some little work done in the Chandigarh Housing Board, PUDA, HUDA or the estate offices were kept waiting. Visitors were advised by the skeletal staff on duty to come only on October 30.

Those wanting to get disputed telephone, power bills or water bills settled, rushed to the offices to get their work done today.

A middle level official explained that the official closed days were from Thursday to Sunday, but several of the employees had wisely taken three days of leave on October 23, 24 and 25 to make it a nine day off. With Saturday and Sunday being closed days employees needed to take only three days of leave before enjoying the closed day on Thursday due to Divali and also the closed day on Friday. Though banks and post offices opened on today the rush at these places was evident.

Almost all schools and colleges also re-opened today .

‘Vigilance awareness week’ from today
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Oct 30 — On the directions of the Chief Vigilance Commissioner, the Central Excise Commissionerate, Chandigarh-1, will observe “vigilance awareness week” from tomorrow, the Commissioner, Mr Inder Raj Soni, said here today.

The start of the week would coincide with the birth anniversary of Sardar Patel. An oath would be administered to staff to eradicate corruption from all spheres of life and provide value-based services to assessees, Mr Soni said while addressing a press conference.

With a view to providing transparent administration, the Excise authorities had launched the Vigilance Alert System (VAS), an automated online web-based grievance management system. Similarly, to eradicate corruption, visits by inspectors and superintendents to small-scale industries had been barred. To visit such premises, the officers were now required to obtain the prior written approval of the Assistant Commissioners and the Deputy Commissioners concerned and produce the written authorisation on demand.